Chicken Chorizo Burgers with Cumin-Lime Quick Pickles

Sarah is a 20-something engineering undergrad student at UMD who is “eating and cooking her way through life in DC”. She’s admirably ambitious. Besides writing a food blog, in any given week she’s taking and teaching classes, playing in sport leagues and spending whatever time is left with friends and family. When she cooks, all pots, pans and utensils end up in the kitchen sink. Hence the name of her blog.

Sarah nailed it with this burger. Simply flavored with onion and garlic, she warns us not to over mix the chorizo and chicken meat. This helps to maintain a good end result in texture. And with the pockets of chorizo these burgers weren’t dry and lifeless like other chicken burgers I’ve tried.

What really brings this burger to the forefront is the topping of the cumin-lime quick pickles. Zesty with lots of lime, rich with cumin, the flavor is complimented with the addition of smoky goodness. The recipe called for smoked salt, which I couldn’t find at the store, so I grabbed a jar of smoked black peppercorns which ended up to be a very nice addition. Add some lettuce and tomato and you’ve got a tasty burger.

Sarah also topped her burger with some corn crema as a condiment. For absolutely no reason other than I needed a side dish, I served the corn separately.

Begin by slicing the small cucumbers into the pickle shape, using the slicing blade on your food processor.

Extract some of the water from the cucumbers by placing them in a colander, adding a pinch of salt, and letting it drain for about 2 hours. This helps the cucumbers ready to absorb flavors.

After draining, build the quick pickling liquid. Combine the vinegar, lime zest and juice, cumin, garlic powder, smoked peppercorns and salt. Pour over the cucumbers and let sit for about an hour before topping the burgers with the quick pickles!

I would normally not get to enthused over a chicken burger, but the addition of chorizo got my attention. The pickle topping sounds perfect and I like being able to make them in a couple of hours. Great shot of it with the pickle that has fallen off.

I would normally not get enthused over a chicken burger either Larry. Especially since I always buy ground breast. Maybe I should try ground thighs next time. Anyway, yes, that pickle is a nice flavorful topping. Thanks for the compliment on the photo.

Hi there. The current Food on Friday on Carole’s Chatter is about burgers. I do hope you link this lovely one in. This is the link . Please do pop back to check out some of the other links – there are a lot of good ones already. Have a great week.

I found that smoked pepper at Whole Foods. I was really surprised they didn’t have smoked salt. I remember my son buying it there a couple years ago. Those pickles are really good Lisa. We had friends over and I ended up sending a few home with my begging friend Dan. He went crazy over them.

Love the pickle recipe, Lea Ann. I don’t make burgers of any kind very often…but was recently watching a show with Ina Garten and she went on and on about overmixing hamburger meat and how it makes it tough all scrunched up like that. Do it lightly so air is left in, she said. I cringed when I remembered doing that very thing for my family. Never too late to learn!
Yummy burger!

I usually shy away from ground chicken, but that burger looks delicious, Lea Ann. I saw Persian cukes at Costco last week and was trying to think of something to do with them. Love your photos. They make my stomach growl.

[…] bowl of some not so simple in flavor pickles. These are the cumin-lime pickles that I made for the Chicken Chorizo burgers a few days before wine night. Stand alone, these pickles were a really nice […]

[…] of cuisine and as I was perusing my pins, I came across this burger that sparked my interest. A Chicken Chorizo Burger from Lea Ann over at Cooking On The Ranch. She also does a Cumin Lime Quick Pickle that sounds […]